When I was studying abroad in Mexico, I had to live with two host families. The first family, was NIGHTMARE!
Let me tell you all about how the family of “Peace, Loving Yoga Instructors” ended up being the most violent people I’ve ever met.
On the first night my roommate, Jenny, & I ended up being the last two people picked up by their host families. We were left on the sidewalk outside of the school just waiting. We should have known then.
Our host family claimed to be “pacifist, yoga instructors” who practiced New Age Religion, not Catholoicism like the majority of the country. And of course, they ended up with two Catholic girls living with them & the host dad was none too happy about it (another post for another time will be all about the time he tried to use rocks to “suck” out the bad energy from my stomach ache or some crazy crap like that.)
One morning Jenny & I went out to the kitchen to go get breakfast. The family was gone but our host mom had left food out for us on the bar area. Yeah, the milk was SO old that it had gone mostly solid, almost like jello.
That night we came home from class & they were eating supper. But they had fed their kids the good food & we got spoiled spaghetti. Needless to say, I lost 10 pounds in 14 days of living with them. I lived off of Strawberry Poptarts & Gatorade for two weeks. It was miserable!
About 9 days into living with them, Jenny & I were going out to meet up with some people we had met on campus (Hello Hottie Todd! 🙂 & that’s when the worst happened….
I was walking out of the house to go meet the taxi driver. As I went out the door I saw my host dad with his hands around my host mom’s neck & he threw her into the steering wheel of the car & then she just went limp. I never saw her get up. And he did it in front of his two kids who were about 7 & 9.
I went into survival mode, pretended like I didn’t see anything, the jackass fell for it, I didn’t tell Jenny until we got out of the house, & then we appropriately freaked the crap out on the taxi ride over to the dance club.
A few hours later when we got back to our house, we couldn’t get back into the house. The awesome host dad had locked us out. Our beat up host mom snuck downstairs to let us in.
Immediately the next morning we go to the head of housing and tell her we want to leave (this was our 2nd meeting with her. Apparently being fed rotten food was us just having a “hard time adjusting”, fortunately she thought watching a man beat the crap out of his wife was justifiable for wanting to move.)
We had to go on a weekend trip before we could move. We were PROMISED a new house when we got back. And you guessed it, NO NEW HOUSE when we got back in town.
That night, we showed up at the Scary Monster House & all seemed fine. That is until I noticed the wall sized mirror (I mean this thing was GIGANTIC) shattered into pieces all over the floor. Our host dad had thrown our host mom into it.
It was a long night of listening to them screaming, listening to our host mom’s dad come over & try to smooth things over, listening to the kids scared not wanting the Americans to see their family being so insane. Not to mention the phone calls to my parents telling them what was going on in psycho land.
The next morning, when we woke up our host family had left the house to take the kids to school. The mirror was still all over the floor. We had spent all night packing & this was our small window of opportunity to sneak out of the house. We called a taxi, about peed our pants trying to sneak out of the house because we thought that our host dad had padlocked us IN the house (it had happened before!)
We made it school, with our bags in tow, ignoring all the crazy looks we were getting for having all our luggage on campus when we still had several weeks left of the trip, & we HAPPILY & GRATEFULLY got ready in the bathroom at school that morning.
That loooong, terrifying night listening to those crazy people scream at each other definitely sealed Jenny & me as friends forever.
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| Me, Todd, & Jenny in Mexico |
Holy crap that is INSANE! You must have been terrified! Thank heavens you had a friend with you, it's a lot less scary than if you were alone (still freaking scary though!)
It was really scary! Especially when the host dad came to our room to ask us if we were hungry in the middle of all his yelling that last night, we just lied so he would get the heck out of there!
Me too. It was so sad. She was so pretty but she moused around with her head held down. And she would talk to us about how they met & how awesome things were in the beginning. She & the kids were amazing. The dad not so much.
How awful! I feel the worst for their poor kids. I hope the crazy SOB never killed his their mother. I know you and your friend must have been absolutely terrified.
Unbelievable and so scary when you think how many families send their kids off to hosting situations all of the time – with no real idea of what may go down behind closed doors. What an experience – and yet, you ended with a great friend out of it!
See, I was in survival mode. I knew I had to take care of the situation. Jenny who is sweeter was scared & worried for our host mom & the kids (she is also a nurse who is just the most maternal, caring person you will ever meet.)
I think about Liliana (the host mom) a lot & the kiddos too. I hope that they are okay.
Yeah my first host family in Spain wasn't great either. The mom was an alcoholic who passed out in her food & I ended up babysitting the kids while the mom & dad fought all night about her drinking. My roommate & I had to sneak out of that house too. Fortunately, we were only there about a week. And we were being fed. And there was no physical violence, at least none that I saw.
As a parent, I think about how my parents must have been feeling when I called them to tell them what was going on with the hose dad in Mexico. They must have been wigging out!
And the psycho dad was PADLOCKING us in the house! What if he had decided not let us out one day, that could have been really bad!
That was a crazy experience. I can imagine how that brought you and Jenny closerr together. I don't know what I would have done in that situation. I studied abroad for a summer in Germany and had the best experience. Did your trip get better once you got moved to another family? I hope so.
I went to Spain one summer & Mexico another summer. Both of the families I was placed with the first time was TERRIBLE and I had to be moved. The second families were amazing!
Especially the family in Mexico. I am still super close to them & email them all the time. Someday I'm going to make it back "home" to see them!
I have learned here that Spain is a crazy place – Spain will live in both of your hearts forever though Jake765@aol.com
I'm so shocked.
Hi Kate
This week is all about introducing you to some different meme's and communities, so check back thro Monday
and stick thro til Friday 🙂
Over the weekend there is a link up for Facebook
and you could meet some new 'friends'.
There is usually something new going on over here with our travel schedule, homeschool travel … and life lol
Isn't life crazy for us all 😉
Much love to you
and again Thanx !
xxx —– Original Message —–
There’s no indication that this will be in English. The stars are three Korena women ayanwy, and all the stuff on the internet and the few banners around town are in Korean. I read that some foreign women in Jeonju were trying to put one on next month, but I don’t know anything else about that.
My hat is off to your astute command over this topic-bravo!
It was really scary! Especially when the host dad came to our room to ask us if we were hungry in the middle of all his yelling that last night, we just lied so he would get the heck out of there!